Australian retirees tipped to join world’s wealthiest

Australian retirees could become the richest in the world, according to new research.

As a voice for more than 11 million Australians, the Super Members Council says the nation’s pension assets will surpass the UK’s in 2030 and Canada’s by 2031.

Australian retirees are set to become some of the world’s wealthiest.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer

The milestones will mean the collective nest egg will become the second richest in the world, behind only that of the United States, despite Australia having the 55th-highest population.

The council’s analysis shows that between 2001 and 2023, Australia’s cumulative superannuation contributions were the highest among OECD countries, and well above the OECD average.

Super Members Council chief executive Misha Schubert said Australia’s super system was the envy of the world. “Australia has the fastest-growing super system globally – twice the rate of international peers,” she said.

“We’re the only OECD country where spending on government-funded pension payments is falling and will continue to fall.”

It comes as a drive to win over the Trump administration kicked off on Monday in Washington, with the nation’s $US2.6 trillion ($4.1 trillion) superannuation industry hosting top US officials and executives including Treasury secretary Scott Bessent and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

The event begins in Australia’s embassy in Washington and runs over four days in what’s called a “super summit”, referring to the compulsory private pension industry known in Australia as superannuation. It then moves to New York, according to a statement from the embassy on Monday.

Other US business leaders attending include Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser and Australian executives from Macquarie, NAB, Westpac and the nation’s largest pension funds, according to an official who was not authorised to speak on the record. Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers will also be on hand.

“The US presents a great opportunity to deliver strong investment returns for Australians in retirement,” Paul Schroder, chief executive officer of AustralianSuper, the country’s largest pension fund, said in the statement. “In the last century, the worst bet anyone could have made was against the US. That’s not about to change.”

Australia’s pension funds already invest in around $US400 billion of assets in the US, which is expected to double over the next decade to $US1 trillion, according to the embassy statement. The industry is one of the world’s fastest-growing, with around half of its assets now offshore as record inflows force the funds to look beyond their own backyard for returns.

In a video advertisement that will be played at the summit, US attendees are told how Australian workers’ pension funds are helping to “repave roads and bridges across Indiana” and “export US natural gas off the coast of Freeport, Texas”.

Australia is working to build closer ties with the White House in the hope of avoiding the worst of the new US tariff regime. President Donald Trump said he would consider an exemption for Australia from steel and aluminum duties, following talks by telephone with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese this month.

However, one of the president’s senior trade advisers, Peter Navarro, has spoken publicly against any exemptions for Australia, saying it was “killing” the US aluminum industry.

Officials in Australia are also concerned about a potential trade response over efforts by the Albanese government to take on US tech giants. This includes plans for a potential levy on social media firms that don’t strike deals with local media companies in return for using their content.

- AAP, Bloomberg.

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